Court adjourns
proceedings for lack of Ga Interpreter
Accra (Greater Accra) 19
February 2003- President John Agyekum Kufuor is expected to leave Accra on
Tuesday night to attend the 22nd Franco-African Summit scheduled for Paris,
France on February 20-21.
The theme for the two-day
He said the crisis in
Others were major challenges in
the world, fight against terrorism and organised crime, environment and
sustainable development. The first
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Agona Swedru (Central Region)
This unfortunate situation, he
said, has resulted in majority of revenue collected finding their ways into the
pockets of some disgruntled collectors, thus making it impossible for the
respective assemblies to meet their targets.
He said the time had come for
the assemblies to find ways and means of blocking loopholes in the system in
order to make it impossible for revenue collectors to cheat the assemblies.
Baah-Wiredu expressed these
concerns when he addressed the closing session of a two-day workshop on the
legal institutional framework of the District Assembly election at Agona Swedru
at the weekend.
He said the assemblies cannot
rely on the common funds, and other ceded monies from the central government
all the time, and therefore, stressed the need for them to be proactive to
improve upon revenue generation.
The Minister said his ministry
would soon review laws that had existed for more than 10 years and charged the
National Association of Local Government (NALAG) to assist when it came for
their implementation.
He said some of the laws have to
be repealed to pave way for fresh ones to improve efficiency in the district
assembly system. On the proposed payment of remuneration for Assembly members,
Baah-Wiredu charged the district assemblies to widen their revenue collection
base so as to assist them to pay attractive salaries when it comes to the
implementation of the proposal.
He stated that now that the
assemblies had been mandated by the Ministry of Local Government to establish
their own newsletters, most Ghanaians resident abroad would have access to
activities of the assemblies.
Kwadwo Afari-Gyan,
Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC), assured the participants that the
Commission would collaborate with the relevant institutions to take practical
decisions to ensure effective conduct of the 2006 district assembly elections.
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Nkawkaw (Eastern Region)
The Kwahu
South district is the second most populous in the Eastern Region after
Koforidua with three constituencies. This was announced by the MP for Nkawkaw, Okachiri Kwabena Edusah, at a
sod-cutting ceremony at Nkawkaw on Monday for the construction of a
2.5-kilometre-road under Urban Five at a cost of 3.8 billion cedis.
He said the construction of the
roads and the creation of the district would enhance the development of the
town. Edusah said the Ministry of Roads and Transport
had promised to construct additional five kilometres of roads as the second
phase of the project and urged the people to co-operate with the contractor to
ensure early completion of the project.
The District Chief Executive,
Raymond Osafo Djan, said Adehyeema
Industrial Complex that is undertaking the contract had been given nine months
to complete the project. He said a number of roads, drains and a lorry park
would be built under the project which is the government's priority development
programmes to enhance the living standard of the people.
He appealed to the people to
remove their kiosks and other structures along the roads for the contractor to
complete the project on schedule. The Chief of Nkawkaw Zongo,
Alhaji Mahamadu Osman, commended the government for
undertaking the project.
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He also said he was amazed at
allegations made against Peter Nanfuri, then Director
of the BNI, during the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) era.
"People are throwing dust into the eyes of the honourable members of the
Commission, but when the dust settles we shall know that truth about the BNI
and Nanfuri."
Capt. Asase-Gyimah
made his first appearance at the NRC to respond to allegations of torture made
against him by Ex-private Samuel Twumhene and
corroborated by one Stanley Okyere, also an
ex-soldier.
He was alleged to have ordered
the late Flt. Lt. Kojo Lee and Flt. Lt. Fordjuor to torture Twumhene
during an interrogation in February 1983, after an alleged coup plot against
the PNDC.
Capt. Asase-Gyimah
said from his intercourse with the BNI as national security coordinator he
learnt that the BNI comprised honourable men and women, who had graduated with
honours and were serious about life. They would therefore, not get involved in
the kind of torture described by the various witnesses at the Commission over the
past five weeks.
"I know that everything
which happened in the BNI is normally recorded on paper, audio and video tapes,
and I would advise that the Commission goes for the facts at the BNI before
drawing their conclusions on the evidence given by witness.
"But I can say on authority
that the BNI is not even a quarter of what people are painting it to be,"
he said. He, however, could not say the same for the Gondar
Barracks at Burma Camp, where he admitted, torture, mayhem and molestation of
suspects was rampant during the revolutionary days, between 1982 and 1983.
"I personally witnessed the
molestation of the junior military men, who might have included Twumhene, by their colleagues at the Gondar
Barracks after they were arrested at their coup plot base and I stopped the
molestation," he said.
Capt. Asase-Gyimah,
a lawyer by profession, advised the Commission to take evidence about issues of
national security in camera, adding that such issues were sensitive and it was
important that the national security machinery was protected from the
tendencies of negative evidence.
He said BNI was the only
protective machinery this nation had and it was imperative that its integrity
was protected. Capt. Asase Gyimah, however, admitted
that he did not have all the answers about the alleged nefarious activities of
the BNI, saying that some personnel of the BNI subjected suspects to unofficial
and unprofessional interrogations and he could not account for them.
Asked whether he was aware of
late night interrogations and torture at the BNI, he said he himself was on two
occasions, almost picked up by personnel from the BNI in the night. Based on
that he could say there were some nocturnal activities by BNI personnel but he
not could say those were official.
Almost every member of the
Commission explained to Capt. Asase-Gyimah that the
evidence before the Commission about the BNI and Nanfuri
were given in writing by different persons, at different times and different
locations ahead of the hearing and yet all of them pointed to the same issue of
torture and late night interrogations.
He still insisted that the
Commission would need to get the individual records of those who made the
allegations from the BNI and find out from the records what actually happened
at the BNI. Justice K. E. Amua-Sekyi told Capt. Asase-Gyimah that the Commission had thoroughly
investigated the evidence at the BNI ahead of the hearing and therefore, had
the kind of evidence Asase-Gyimah was talking about.
For the first time at the hearing,
the Chairman asked a question when he asked Capt. Asase-Gyimah
the disparity between the rule and practice regarding the molestation of junior
military men by senior officers.
Capt. Asase-Gyimah
said the rule debars officers from using their hands on the men. The NRC
chairman referred him to a book titled "When the Gun Rules" saying in
that book it was revealed that military officers used their hands on military
men.
Capt. Asase-Gyimah
kept alluding to the revolution as a reason why there was a breakdown of the
rules and discipline in the military, which allowed certain wrong things to be
done by military men at the time.
Earlier he was allowed to
interrogate Twumhene and he sought to establish that
he (Twumhene) was involved in a coup plot in the
house of one Major Ackanson at Achimota on
He alleged that Twumhene and about 15 others met in that house and one Lt. Abittoe furnished them with weapons, which Twumhene was involved in off-loading from a truck. He added
that Twumhene personally requested that if the coup
were successful, he would have liked the post of Army Commander.
Capt. Asase-Gyimah
denied ever ordering anybody to torture Twumhene,
saying he never interrogated anyone who was tortured in his presence or had
been tortured earlier and looked obviously unfit to answer questions.
In response to a question as to
whether he was aware that his name evokes negative feelings in people, he said
that might be because he was disciplined and non-tolerant of crime of any
nature and so people who had criminal intentions feared him.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 19
February 2003- A businessman on Tuesday told the National Reconciliation
Commission (NRC) in Accra that he lost his four companies and three cars as a
result of four years' of unlawful detention after returning from his home
country of Lebanon where he lived for six years following his alleged
complicity in an alleged coup.
"All my 40 years of toil
have evaporated", Sammy Nasiri Nicholas Nasser
told the NRC. He said his petitions to a number of institutions had yielded
little or no positive results.
Not long after that Pianim was alleged to be involved in a coup attempt to oust
the then Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC).
His four companies and his
vehicles - Mercedes Benz car, BMW, Volvo and an American car - were confiscated
to the state. He said that Kofi Djin, one time
Secretary for the Interior, used one of the cars and one Tony Gbeho, formerly of the Bureau of National Investigation
(BNI) also used one.
He said the American car was
later returned to him.
He said he had neither water nor
food in the cells and slept on the bare cement floor for three days.
He said after initial laboratory
tests he was driven to the theatre for surgery, which could not come off
because the theatre was not functioning and there was no bed.
He said he was transferred to
the James Fort Prison, and then to the Nsawam Prsion, where he again developed hernia. When he pleaded to
be sent to hospital, B. T. Baba said it was not safe for security reasons at
the time, which was during the Non-Aligned Conference Meeting.
He said Nana Ato
Dadzie, who was handling his wife's petition to the
then Chairman Jerry John Rawlings to have him released did not even want to see
her again.
During cross-examination Capt. Asssie-Gyimah asked
Capt. Assasie-Gyimah
asked
Nasser, who said he and Capt. Assasie-Gyimah had hugged each other when they met at the
Commission, said he had no animosity towards him. The Most Reverend Charles
Palmer-Buckle, a member of the Commission asked Nasser, who clutched a
briefcase, which he said, was full of records of the events at the BNI
interrogations room, to publish his records for the education of Ghanaians.
Hearing continues.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 19
February 2003- The Supreme Court (SC) by a majority decision on Tuesday
dismissed an application for a review of its earlier ruling filed by Samuel Nyimakan, former Member of Parliament (MP) for Wulensi.
The Court by a six-one-majority
decision ruled, "it has decided not to review its
earlier decision". The six judges in the majority group were the Chief
Justice (presiding), Justice Edward Kwame Wiredu, Justice George Kingsley
Acquah, Justice Kwame Afreh, Dr Justice Seth Twum, Justice Steve Brobbey and
Justice Sam Baddoo. Ms Justice Sophia Akuffo dissented. The Court deferred its reasons for the
ruling, saying that they would be given by the end of the month.
It awarded a cost of eight
million cedis against the former MP, who based his application for review on
the power conferred on the SC by Article 133 (1) of the Constitution, which
states that "the SC may review any decision made or given by it on such
grounds and subject to such conditions as may be prescribed by the rules of the
Court."
On
The former MP took the matter up
at the SC. On 15 January this year, by a majority decision of four-to-one, the
SC dismissed his appeal on the grounds that "it has no jurisdiction in
appeals in matters relating to Article 99 of the Constitution." Not satisfied
with the SC's decision, the former MP, on 20 January
applied to the same Court to re-consider its earlier decision by way of
reviewing it. It was this review application which the Court dismissed on
Tuesday.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 19
February 2003- Ex-Able Seaman Edward Somua Adofo, Tuesday alleged that he was shot thrice in the leg,
neck and stomach when he tried to prevent armed military men from entering the
residence of the late Real Admiral Joy Amedume during
the 4 June uprising.
He said as a result of the
gunshot his intestines gushed out and he fell unconscious in a pool of blood,
adding that his colleagues who concluded he was dead performed his funeral when
he was recovering at the 37 Military Hospital.
"On my return home from the
hospital after about 10 weeks I went to my home town and those who saw me
initially ran away because they thought I was a ghost," he said. Adofo said during his seven years and 138 days service with
the navy, he was detailed to guard the late Real Admiral Amedume's
residence, adding that on the
He said he and his six
colleagues on guard at the time were posted at vantage points in the house and
he was put in charge of the gate so he opened the gate to talk to the soldiers.
Adofo said the soldiers asked to be permitted in but
he sought their mission, adding that on questioning them he was given a shot in
his leg, but he kept standing and would not allow them in.
"In the course of our
encounter I was given another shot in my neck then in my stomach and my
intestines gushed out," he said. "That was when I started losing
consciousness and I prayed for God to save my life for me to serve him."
He said he sought for one of his
colleagues to give a verbal will to be given to his family but all of them
abandoned him to his fate till he fell unconscious. Adofo
said he woke up after four weeks and realised he was in a hospital bed at the
37 military hospital with stitches all over his body and tubes in his anus and
neck for passing out faeces and for eating.
He said after 10 weeks in the
hospital he was discharged and he left for his hometown where he discovered to
his amazement that he had been reported dead and his funeral had been performed
weeks ago.
"Later I went back to the
naval base and none of my officers and my colleagues mentioned anything about
my ordeal, as if they were not aware that I had suffered anything," he
said.
He said in the course of time he
asked for excuse duty to attend to his health, adding that when it was granted
he left the barracks for home to be with his wife and children to receive
adequate care because the barracks apartments were designed for individuals and
not for families.
Adofo said on his return from the
house to the barracks he was accused of Absence Without
Official Leave (AWOL), which was punishable by summary dismissal, adding that
he was on that grounds discharged on
"In my discharge book I was
given a fitting testimonial except that the testimonial stated that I was
discharged on medical grounds and that has since worked against me in my
attempts to seek employment elsewhere, he said. He said he was given his
gratuity of about 25,000 cedis, adding that he has since not worked for a
salary.
Adofo said he has become an
Evangelist and a driver at the same time and has six children. Bishop Charles
Palmer-Buckle and Maulvi Wahab
Adam took Adofo to the private room and observed his
three gun shot wounds.
On their return, Bishop
Palmer-Buckle said there were about 3.5 inch scars each on his leg and neck and
about 10 inch scars each on his abdomen and waist, adding that the scars on his
abdomen were also about four millimetres deep.
Adofo said he had long forgiven his
persecutors but anytime he saw his scars, or met military men in uniform or
heard firecrackers during Christmas, he is reminded of his ordeal.
Bishop Palmer-Buckle said the
trauma of Adofo is a good reason why the Commission
was necessary, "because in spite of his Christian faith he is still
traumatised anytime he sees his scar, military men in uniform or hear
firecrackers."
He said the counselling session
of the Commission was committed to helping people like Adofo
to go over the trauma once and for all. In another case, Julius Nii Boye Hammond, told the
Commission that he was wrongfully dismissed with about 380 people from the
Ghana Post and Telecommunication Service on
He said he was denied his End of
Service Benefit ESB and has therefore, been living on charity from his church,
the Church of the Living God since the dismissal.
He appealed to the Commission to
ensure that he was either reinstated or given his ESB to make ends meet.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 19
February 2003- Professor Dominic Fobih, the Minister
of Environment and Science (MES), on Tuesday urged the National Implementing
Committee on the World Summit On Sustainable Development (WSSD) to raise the
necessary awareness on the outcomes of the Johannesburg Summit and the UN's
Millennium Development goals to push the nation's programme on sustainable
progress forward.
He also charged members of the
committee to develop "a novel development strategy" in line with
Prof Fobih
said the WSSD held in
He said in line with
Prof. Fobih
explained that it was generally acknowledged that
"The new agenda initiated
by African leaders, NEPAD, reflects the UN's Millennium Development goals. It
is therefore, comforting to note that NEPAD has gained the support and
recognition of the UN and many international organisations.
"However, insufficient
consultations with key stakeholders coupled with a lack of understanding of
issues and inadequate capacity for strengthening civil society initiatives, to
back up the efforts of governments could potentially hinder the implementation
of this regional agenda."
Prof. Emmanuel Kwesi Boon, a member of the committee and a lecturer at the
He said sustainable development
would also depend on the human resource base of the country and that education
was therefore another area to be tackled by the committee.
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Wa (Upper West)
He said before the increase in
prices of petroleum products by over 90 per cent the average Ghanaian could not
afford school fees, health service bills, decent food and accommodation.
''Therefore, the 68 per cent
increase in the minimum wage being demanded by the TUC was justified,'' Asekabta said. He was addressing the fourth quadrennial
Upper West Regional Delegates' Conference of the Teachers and Educational
Workers Union (TEWU) of the TUC at Wa.
"The fire that has been
started in the coast is definitely sweeping across the country and our region
is no exception," he cautioned employers. The two-day meeting would
deliberate on the service conditions of members of TEWU, the relationship
between the Union and the Ghana Education Service, elect officers for the next
four years and come out with a resolution.
Asebtaka said the Regional Council of
Labour had not abandoned its decision taken on 11 November last year to
demonstrate against private participation in the production and distribution of
water.
Mohammed Seidu
Bogobiri, Deputy-General Secretary of TEWU, said the
Bogobiri said the non-refund of medical
bills of GES staff which has been pegged at 25,000 cedis per staff per year,
non-payment of responsibility and overtime allowances for the same group of
workers were some of the difficulties confronting the union.
He advised members of the
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A source close to the Tripartite
Committee told reporters in
The source denied a publication
in a newspaper on Tuesday that "the government did not put forward any
figure" at the Committee's meeting held on Monday, 17 February. "The
government's offer is more than a dollar and it is useful to recollect that the
minimum wage was barely over 60 cents when the government took over power.
"This is the first time in
recent years that the government has produced something that has broken the one
dollar psychological barrier." The source said the minimum wage was the
legal benchmark below which people in employment could not be paid.
The problem had been that those
who negotiated on behalf of labour were in the higher income category and
anytime the increase was applied across board it widened the gap between those
in the high-income category and those in the low-income category.
The source explained that
government's strategy was not to give a universal or an increase across board
because any increase across board tended to widen the gap between the rich and
the poor.
The source said government's
strategy was to have a three-tier approach, which envisaged that those in the
lower income category would have the maximum upward adjustment while those in
the highest level would have the lowest upward adjustment in order to bridge
the gap between the lowest and highest paid.
"The government has already
indicated that as a sign to show its sensitivity to the vulnerable in society
who were adversely affected by the recent increases in petroleum products
prices, government officials would not enjoy any benefit from the upward
adjustment," the source said.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 19
February 2003- The Teshie Concerned Citizens Association (TCCA) in Accra on
Tuesday besieged Parliament House demonstrating against the irregular supply of
water by the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) to the Teshie Township.
The protesters started their
march around 08:30 hours from the Teshie and proceeded to Accra chanting war
songs, clad in red attire and carrying placards and later moved to the State
House to present their petition to the Speaker of Parliament.
The demonstrators numbering over
a 100 carried placards some of which read:
"Give us this day our daily water"; "No Water No
life"; "Minister for Works and Housing Teshie Needs Your Help"
and "Speaker of Parliament Teshie Needs Your Help".
They later presented a petition
to the First Deputy Speaker, Freddie Blay at the
forecourt of the House. He promised to channel the petition to the right
authorities for appropriate action.
The petition signed by Set H A. Tagoe, Co-ordinator of the association, said places such as
Habin Restaurant and Casino, Teshie Camp and Coca
Cola Company on the Spintex road have regular supply of water to the detriment
of the people of Teshie.
It said Teshie like most old
towns in Greater Accra lacked many social amenities such as portable water,
good drainage system and roads. The petition said vehicle have hit many Teshie
citizens while crossing the busy roads to search for water, adding that some
met their untimely and painful deaths while others had been maimed.
The demonstrators said they
resorted to the demonstration because several appeals they had made to the
Ministry for Works and Housing, Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) and the
Member of Parliament for the area to restore and maintain regular supply of water
to the people of Teshie had not yielded any fruitful response.
The Reverend Joseph Martey Odorkor, Spokesperson for
the group said TCCA met with Jonathan Nii Ahele Nunoo, Acting Managing
Director of GWCL, and came to a compromise that Teshie would get regular supply
of water on Saturdays, Sundays and Wednesdays beginning from
He said the citizens of Teshie
had suffered long enough and felt cheated and earlier the problem was rectified
the better it would be for all. Edward Martey Akita,
Deputy Minister of Defence and Member of Parliament for the area, answering the
concerns of the demonstrators said the perennial water problem facing the
Teshie township was a very huge one that might require
some time before it could be resolved.
He said he had been able to
acquire four large Poly tanks at a cost of 17 million cedis with a capacity of
2,000 gallons each to be filled regularly by GWCL tankers for the people to use
as a short-term measure before a permanent solution could be found.
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Court
adjourns proceedings for lack of Ga Interpreter
When the case was called, Osafo Sampong, Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) informed the
court that since the seventh prosecution witness could only speak Ga there was the need to get an interpreter, who could
translate her evidence into English.
Justice J. C. Amonoo-Monney, the trial judge, had no alternative than to adjourn
the matter to Wednesday to enable the court to arrange for an interpreter. Four
persons are standing trial in the case for their alleged involvement in bribery
and corruption in connection with the privatisation of the company.
They are Hanny
Sherry Ayittey, Treasurer of the 31st December Women's Movement, Emmanuel Amuzu Agbodo, former Executive
Secretary of the Divestiture Implementation Committee, Ralph Casely-Hayford, Businessman, and Sati Dorcas Ocran, Housewife. All four have pleaded not guilty to their
various charges, and the court has granted them bail in their own recognisance.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 19
February 2003- Interpol Accra on Tuesday arrested a 72-year-old Greek-American
who together with two other foreigners, swindled a trader in Abidjan and took
refuge in Ghana.
Police sources told the Ghana
News Agency (GNA) that Theodore Cartons was arrested at his hideout at a hotel
in Tema at the community seven. The two other suspects, who are on the run are,
Haji Hami Sroud alias Abou, a Lebanese and Seydi Mamadou, Senegalese. They
are wanted in
The sources said Theodore would
be repatriated to
The source said, Theodore issued a Cheque for 10,000 dollars to Ezzedine to be cashed at the Cal Merchant Bank on the
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